Learning Letters in the Classroom

The classroom that I attend for my field experience is a 3-4 year old preschool class. They use Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum. Each week we learn a new letter and this week was V. My host teacher does a large group activity to introduce the letter and later does a small group activity with one or two children at a time to reinforce the letter they are learning.
The Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum offers many different activities to teach uppercase letters. It teaches to write letters based on big lines, small lines, big curves, small curves, and diagonals.
To teach the letter V, my host teacher began with demonstrating the two diagonal lines with magnetic strips on the board. Then, the children are given the chance to say words that begin with this letter. Once there is a list of words they have come up with, she gets out the V can of alphabet soup. The can contains different objects that begin with the letter. After that, a small booklet is used to show pictures of more objects that start with V. After they discuss everything they have that starts with V, they say goodbye to all of the objects.
Example: Violin.
Teacher: Who remembers what this instrument is?
Children: Violin!
Teacher: Let's say goodbye to our violin.
Children: Goodbye violin!
Once all of the objects are put up, they watch a letter video on the smartboard from ABCKids.
Later in the day my host teacher calls one or two children to a table at a time to work on the letter they were introduced to that week. She uses tracing worksheets provided by the Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum.
Example:The children trace the letters referencing big lines, small lines, big curves, small curves, and diagonal terminology. After they trace the letters they can color the object and they are done.
There are numerous other activities this curriculum offers that would be more fun and engaging that I would use along with these activities.
Wet Dry Try for example would be an activity I would  use to supplement the other activities. The children draw a letter on their small chalkboard with a wet sponge(the blue piece). Then they trace that with a tissue or towel to dry it. Finally, they try making the letter with chalk. Then they can keep repeating this process until they have accomplished their goals.


Overall, I think this curriculum is very beneficial and can work well with young children, if it is implemented often and reinforced with different activities that different children can enjoy.
The worksheet that the children in the classroom I am in rush through the tracing just so they can color the picture. That is why other activities need to be implemented to supplement this work.

What I am Learning in Field Experience: Week 1

To establish open and respectful communication with my classroom teacher, I began communication via email. I asked to set up a meeting so we could discuss everything we expect from each other. I met with my teacher the Friday before I started in the classroom. In that meeting we got our introductions out of the way and discussed the assignments I would be doing and my teacher's expectations of what I would be doing in the classroom. To keep this open communication, I often ask my teacher what I can be doing and ask for clarification about how to carry out the instructions. I plan to keep the communication open and respectful by asking questions and accepting feedback.

The preschool class I am doing my field experience in is a public preschool. Most of the children ride the buses and if their parents do bring them to school or pick them up they leave quickly. I have not had an opportunity yet to communicate with parents. Hopefully I will get the opportunity soon.

Keeping communication open with the children is easy for me. I simply talk to them about what they are doing, what they are learning, what they will do, like I would communicate with a peer my age. I try to have deeper conversations with the children whenever possible, not only when we are discussing what they are learning or why a behavior isn't acceptable. I think this shows the children that I respect our communication and hopefully will allow them to listen to our discussions with meaning.

I began communication on the first day I was in the classroom or before and am still hopeful to establish communication with the families of the children.

Telling Stories

In one of my classes I had a guest speaker, a librarian, and she gave me some very helpful advice and information... Tell stories!

So in my last post I talked about how to get your 3 year old to love reading and story telling goes right along with that.

First of all, you should tell your 3 to 4 year old stories... nursery tales actually.. like Billy Goats Gruff and The Gingerbread Man. Read them, or just your child's favorite, over and over again. Eventually you will remember the story and once you remember it, you don't need to use the book anymore. That is the great thing about telling stories. You don't have to memorize them word for word and you can improvise or change the story if you want to.  Tell stories all of the time. Even when you are getting tired of it, your 3 to 4 year old is just getting the hang of it.

Then he/ she will start telling the story... with or without the book. Either way your child will get used to telling stories and that's what you want. Also, once your child is used to telling stories, you can make up stories and draw them with him/ her!

Why do you want your child to tell stories? Well, there are many reasons why story telling is beneficial for young children...

1. Vocabulary- your child is learning new words when telling stories.. even if you use complicated terms in the story, they will repeat it and eventually understand it based on the context of the story.
2. Play- stories give a foundation for play, imagination, and creativity. So the guest speaker I mentioned said something that amazed me. I didn't realize this was a thing but... some kids don't know how to play!!! What? Yeah! All they have done in their short 3 to 4 years is use technology and push buttons. They have never actually just played with a puppet or pretended to be a lion. So when you tell stories and they retell them, it gives them a foundation for play. They can use these stories as a place to start when they play. They can turn the stuffed dog they have never played with into a billy goat or use their blanket as a hood to be little red riding hood.
3. Finally, Confidence- the more your child retells the nursery tales you have read together, the more confidence they will have in telling stories... not just the nursery tales but stories about every part of their life. When you get off of work and pick up your child from daycare, the first thing you want to know is what did he/ she do all day, right? So as your child becomes more confident with story telling, their response to what they did all will become more detailed because he/ she is confident in their ability to convey a message. WOW! Who knew it was so easy?

On top of telling stories, it's also fun for you and your child to add in some props. For example, if you and your child like to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and the story talks about the food inside her picnic basket... you can have a picnic basket with food inside it that is familiar to your families culture. There are so many props you can use with any story.

So seriously, tell your child stories!

A big shout out and thanks to the awesome librarian that inspired this post, C. Jones.

Visit the Monroe County Public Library for some great story telling books!